As A Million Pieces Shatter
by Starflares
Summary: Foaly is being bombarded by clever viruses hidden in harmless disks and emails in a way that can't be possible. Holly thinks she has a way to bring Root back to life. And Artemis can't help. Being shut in boarding school with a hostile roommate feelings


My first Artemis Fowl fanfic. Obviously it doesn't belong to me.

Rub it in why don't you?

"So, you'll be going back to school soon, eh, Arty boy?" The burly, beefy man grinned at him, showing too-white teeth. Obviously dentures. There was no way that such perfection could be natural. They looked like pearls, gleaming out of place in that large, moist mouth.

Artemis fought back his repulsion; his answer shone with the right amount of cordiality and respect. "Yes, I am, next week." Fowl, senior smiled appreciatively at his son. His father knew that Artemis didn't enjoy being present at these sort of business gatherings.

He was often forced to attend though, for the good of the Fowl business.

Not to give advice on stocks and ledgers – Artemis would have quite enjoyed that, actually. But these sort of meetings sawed upon his nerves like a jagged spoon. Beside her father, the girl smiled with desperate cheeriness at Artemis. He didn't smile back at her. What was the point in encouragement when eventually his father would take the man aside and regretfully whisper, "Terribly sorry, I'm afraid Arty just wants to finish his schooling right now. I hoped your daughter… well, she's very pretty… and it would be good for our businesses, wouldn't it? I hope my son's blindness doesn't affect the alliance we're building. I'm seriously thinking of getting that boy glasses."

A little bit of flattery, a little self-disparagement, a little humor, and Daddy would take his Darling Daughter away, but still keep working with Fowl Enterprises quite happily. Fowl, Senior might have been a noble man, but he wasn't a rude, nor a stupid one.

It had been awkward at first, realizing that his son was quite a catch in the business world, and everyone with eligible daughters went out of their way to make the poor girls meet his son. The lure of being Mrs. Artemis Fowl, daughter-in-law to one of the biggest businesses was heady temptation.

Fowl Senior looked at his son and resisted the urge to laugh and fondly ruffle that black hair. Artemis caught his father's eye, and made a small, undetected face.

"Let's leave the two together for a while, shall we, Fowl?" Mr. Driscoll stood up, slapping his large hands onto his knees. "I'm sure the young ones don't want to stick around and hear our dry-as-sticks business talk, eh? They've got better things to do." He winked at Artemis and his daughter, who giggled.

Artemis suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. He could feel his father watching him with amusement.

"Why not?" Fowl Senior said wickedly, getting up as well. He caught the edge of the table, as his prosthetic leg hitched slightly and suddenly. Artemis half-rose out of his chair in alarm, but his father waved him away. "I'm fine Arty. You take Miss Driscoll out to the gardens. Show her the fountain."

The girl simpered, looking at Artemis, batting her eyelashes, then looking away.

"Yes-father." Artemis gritted his teeth. Just looking at that girl gave him a pain. He gave one more worried glance at his father, received a 'don't worry, I'm fine' look back, then stood up, and offered the girl his arm. She took it with a smile and a glance up from overlong eyelashes. Artemis stared. He suspected they were fake. Like father, like daughter…

Generally, with his new found softness of heart, Artemis could generally find it in him to feel sorry for them. After all, they might not have parents like his.

Angeline Fowl's dearest wish was to see her son walk down the aisle with love brimming over in his pretty blue eyes for the girl on his arm. She was a Romantic, a fact that sometimes irritated her son, but in this case had proved useful. She had been aghast when Fowl Senior brought up the Meeting Room Matchmaking Maneuver. Even though Artemis's father had tried to convince his wife that it was for the good of the business, and that he supported her idea of a love match for their son, even now Angeline only barely tolerated the whole gimmick. For her husband's sake.

Whenever she met with one of the numerous girls that had all been escorted by Artemis to the garden, she was downright rude. It could be embarrassing, it could be useful. In this case, with the girl flirting with him embarrassingly at every turn, it would have been a blessing to see Angeline.

"Shall we proceed…Miss Driscoll?" he said, delicately trying to detach her arm from his after they got out of the board room.

She clung on. "Oh, do call me Sandra, Arty!" she chirped, looking up at him.

Artemis smiled, but it was a reflexive move. Sandra seemed to think it an encouragement though, and tightened her arm around his till she almost cut off his blood supply. Artemis looked around for some form of escape. His mother, gliding around the corridors, would be very welcome.

Artemis remembered Hsu Ling Yen. The Chinese girl had made her position clear from the first, hissing, even as she smiled so charmingly at him, "Back off, my friend. This is my uncle's idea, but I've got my own for the business, and I'd like no high-profile husband moving in on my turf." Artemis smirked back at her, a girl after his own heart. The smile on her face grew genuine as she discovered that she had an ally, and Ling Yen had sat back, hands folded, all porcelain elegance. No pawing for that girl, even if her affections were genuine.

"Hello, Artemis." The deep voice rumbled through the hallways.

Artemis looked up and relief showed on his face and exploded in his smile. "Butler!" The move backfired. Sandra took a look at the muscular Eurasian, and gave an affected little "Ooo!" of surprise and huddled nearer to Artemis. A wry grin grew on Butler's mouth. Artemis glared at him.

_Get me out of this, Butler!_

No such luck. His sadistic manservant moved on with a little bow. In the old days, Butler would never have dared show such insubordination. Artemis made a mental note to tell him off for it, if he ever shook the parasitic girl off his arm. "Who was that?" she breathed. Someone must have told her that men liked their women soft, simpering and easily frightened. "Oh, he was frightening… it was a comfort to have you there, Arty."

"Butler," said Artemis stiffly, "is an old friend of mine."

She looked momentarily dumbfounded, as if her gimmick had failed. Credit where credit was due, she recovered fast. "I'm sure I'll love him when I get to know him better!"

Artemis gnashed his teeth. "The garden, Miss Driscoll."

"Sandra, please, I insist!"

Artemis sighed, and looked up at the window where he knew his father and Mr. Driscoll would probably be sharing tea and discussing business plans. He hoped they wouldn't take long. He wasn't sure he could stand much more of this…

"I can't take much more of this!" nickered Foaly, tossing a chip to the floor and stamping on the miniscule thing. Trouble Kelp, the unlucky one, wiped irritably at his eye where a little bit of the plastic had gotten in.

"Do you have to be so violent?" he snapped. "You got some of that thing in my eye!"

"Better your eye than my computer!" Foaly tossed his head back, the long hair flying like a… well, a horse's mane.

"What? Why?"

"I slid this little baby into my drive," said Foaly, eager, as all egomaniacs are, to air their grievances against the world. "It has the designs of some of my latest software. A new iriscam. Really high-tech, not only does it have the normal video camera and everything else, but this time, it also-"

"I'm beginning to get the idea," said Kelp. He turned to go.

"Wait!" said Foaly. "I'm not done yet!"

Kelp leaned against the door. "Then could you hurry it up please, because I would really like to-" He gave a yelp as a long metallic arm, spiky with screws came out of a panel and started molesting him. "Foaly! Is this your idea of a-"

"I've got to safeguard this place!"

"From what exactly?"

By the time Kelp emerged from underneath Foaly's technological jargon, his head was spinning. Only the Mud boy Artemis Fowl could understand more than half of what the centaur was saying. Kelp tried to assimilate what he'd been told. It'd sounded something like "…and the on fly play-calling is remixed with the play diagrams and the…" Foaly paused for breath. "Do you know what this means, man?"

Kelp was forced to the truth. "No," he replied honestly. "Not exactly."

Foaly took in a deep breath, and let it all out slowly. Kelp took a step back. Foaly had had beetle juice and carrots for a snack again.

"It means, my dear Trouble Kelp, that someone has somehow hacked into my plans and infected them with a virus. I tried to make one little change, and the whole thing exploded. My bug sensors didn't make a sound. I had to manually configure it. And this isn't the first time either, it's not some hacker getting lucky."

Kelp still didn't get it. "So what?"

"So what, my dear man? Do you know where my computer is linked?" Foaly snorted. "Typical LEPrecon. All brawn, no brains…"

"Your computer is linked… um… isn't it linked to the whole…?"

"A breakthrough!" Foaly held his hands up to the muddy ceiling in a mock prayer of thanks. "Yes, you dimwit. If my system crashes, then everything blows. And if everything blows, and our guards are down, the smartass can go in and take everything, scramble up records – we could have half our prisoners out on parole. And not to mention they could get their hands on the newest designs I've got of weapons and make and sell them themselves… I won't get the credit for my brilliance…":

Kelp saw the real trouble now. "I see," he said drily.

"Do you, Kelp? Do you truly?" Foaly looked inexplicably serious, gazing into the captain's eyes as if trying to validate that statement.

"Someone could get even Opal Koboi out," blurted Kelp. "That's terrible!"

Again Foaly lifted his eyes and hands to the ceiling. "Hallelujah. Another miracle. Twice in an hour." The computer beeped. Foaly glanced at it. "Ooh, Holly sent an email!" He clicked onto the little message.

Suddenly the screen began to waver violently, and the color went out of focus. Foaly's eyes went wide. Kelp, who had never seen the centaur truly rattled, backed away from the foaming, wild-eyed Foaly. He was using language that would have made a Goblin leave the room – that was something – and rattling away at the computer. His long fingers were suddenly blurs as he typed out commands frantically.

Even without tense background music, Kelp was stirred.

"What's going on, Foaly?" he cried.

"Virus, it got me again!" Foaly's sentences were abrupt and angry. He was a man who had no time for questions. "I can't afford to lose this stuff – damndamndamn-"

"And it got through on Holly's email?" said Kelp, his eyebrows rising as he sensed a lead.

Foaly slammed his fist down onto a whole section of keys. The monitor steadied, and the alarming bursts of color went back to normal. Holly's email was laid out to him, innocently black and white. "No one can intercept an emails and plant something like that in, not unless…" Foaly stared at the letter, reading as he talked distractedly

"Unless he, or she was the one who sent it in the email in the first place?" said Kelp, hating himself for doing it.

Foaly wasn't listening. "Trouble…"

"Huh?"

"Trouble, we're in trouble."

"What?" The captain rushed up to the screen. "What is it? Holly's the culprit?"

"No…" breathed Foaly. "She says she has a way of getting Root _back to life_."

"WHAT?"

"How lovely!" gushed Sandra. Her bright eyes were gleaming with greed. Artemis could tell she already saw herself as mistress of the entire estate. No doubt about it. He'd been presented to numerous pampered heirs with fathers who wanted their paws on the Fowl stock, but Sandra was one of the most irritating he'd ever encountered.

His arm was sweaty and uncomfortable. Once again, Artemis tried to detach himself from her. He longed to be away. Maybe after this he would get Butler to drive him out to town for an Indian or a Chinese dinner. He found himself hungry for such ethnic food recently. It had come along with his sudden interest of Asian arts, beside the Impressionist period. After all, painters like Van Gogh's friend Manet had been interested in Japan.

"This so totally beautiful," Sandra said, squeezing him tightly. "I love it all here – oh, there's daddy! And your father!" She turned, dragging Artemis with her. The expensive, exquisite white skirt flared around her shapely legs, and she waved wildly, knowing her arms were slim and lithe.

A pity that Artemis was after someone with something more than low cunning and fluff between the brains.

"Have a good time, flower?" enquired Mr. Driscoll.

His daughter cuddled up to Artemis. "The best!"

Her prisoner just shot his father a Look.

"How about you eh, Arty? Had fun?" Mr. Driscoll was beaming. His small white teeth caught the summer sunlight and bounced off.

"Certainly…" said Artemis insincerely, finally managing to peel himself away. With the pressure of her warm hand, his sleeve felt pleasantly cool again. He escaped to his father's side. Fowl Senior put a hand on his eighteen year old son's shoulder. The pair of Driscoll's beamed at them.

"You go into the house, Arty. I'll see our guests off."

"Thank you," said Artemis fervently. Only a sense of dignity prevented him from running straight for shelter. He managed to slow his pace down to a slow trot. Inside, Butler was waiting. Artemis gave him a glare. His manservant smiled. "I have the car ready, Artemis, and your mother's permission. She requests you bring her back some eggrolls."

Artemis's irritation with his old friend melted away. "Let's go then, Butler. I need it. Believe me."

"I believe you," chuckled Butler. "I was watching."


End file.
